Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Dancing Monkey

Some animators are great handling scenes that involve dancing. Eric Goldberg is one of them, so is Ken Harris and Ollie Johnston. Frank Thomas had the analytical mind to bring dance to life with unexpected moves and an absence of formulas.
This little jewel of a scene from The Jungle Book shows his extraordinary talents as an animator who knew about eccentric dance movement and how to break it down within twenty-four drawings per second. I LOVE this scene. All drawings are keys, there are no in-betweens. No live action reference was used, Frank pulled this one out of his head. Something is moving in an odd configuration at all times, yet as a whole the scene looks natural and very entertaining.
This is why I love animation, why I adore Frank Thomas and why I keep trying to express myself through moving drawings.

thanks so much for sharing this. It's amazing how much more ...delicate...the pencil test seems in comparison to the very familiar color version. Somehow I'm more aware of him lost inside his own head as he's dancing. Inspiring stuff!

When you say that there are no in-betweens, to say that this is the famous Straight Ahed animation? I have the impression that for most fluid action, it becomes more difficult to use the method pose-to-pose.

I love this animation too! The old style animators was really clever and ground breaking. My biggest dream when I was little was to become a Disney animator, sadly I realised pretty quickly I didn't have what it takes. But sometimes I dream that I am at an animation studio, working with such amazing people as yourself.

I have followed your blog for some years now. I love it, you bring 'topics'/work/drawings up (like this post) and it is so interesting to read about what you have to say about this. Keep up your good work, you are one of my biggest animation heroes! I love your work. I can't seem to say it enough, hehe.

Oh my God this was the best animated sketch Frank Thomas did. Every time I watch Jungle Book I keep picturing Frank Thomas dancing in that animated sequence. I was wondering Andreas, what do you consider to be your formula to make a great animated movie like Jungle Book?

'The Jungle Book' is one of those films that has many memorable scenes of animation that I really think needs studying. I love this little dance, and as a child I did laugh at him and Louie pretty much battling it out.

My ultimate favourite piece though is Bagheera in the opening of the film (animated by Ollie I think?) where you've got Sebastian Cabot doing his voice as narration, but the animation that accompanied it was perfect. Even if it didn't have the narration, you'd still understand that he was thinking and showing concern for Mowgli's well being.